U2. Me2, them too and you too.

It’s incredible to see the media go in to free fall when the U2 show comes to town. As an exercise in how to promote your show no one does it better and no one will ever do it better. It’s close to an invasion, no matter what may be going on in the world they literally command centre stage. U2 is the number one news story. In a day when records, sorry CD sales are at an all time low it’s the only way you can hope to trigger off what meagre sales are out there. Let them know you’re here. And when it comes to record sales even U2 are finding it hard going, the public has not fallen in love with their latest album/ CD. However,  wild horses wouldn’t keep those same people away from the live show.

The band are taking plenty of flack for the carbon emissions from taking this gargantuan beast on the road and you can understand why. Personally though, I believe  The Edge when he says they will offset that carbon footprint in some way. They’d probably already thought about it long before all the knives came out.  Unfortunately at around the same time he bought 156 acres on a cliff in Malibu overlooking the Pacific Ocean to build an eco friendly  home. Well five in fact, his own 10,000 square foot palace and another four to flog. Nice work if you can get it! He does want to make it his main homestead though and having seen the place I think I would too! Needless to say the activists came out in force stating that to build whatever he was building they would need to flatten a part of the cliff to build an access road.

No matter what anyone says about U2, whether it’s the new album, the carbon non friendly size of the tour or anything else for that matter the one thing you can’t ignore is the experience almost every single person who attends the show takes home. For them it’s worth every penny. U2 bring them a happiness that a lot of other bands don’t and for them it’s the best night of their lives. Paul McGuinness  has been quoted as saying they don’t break even until the back end of the US tour so you cannot argue about their desire to give people an experience second to none. The Edge on the edge. Of a cliff.

I don’t think the tour will have a significant effect on their record sales either and I’m sure they know that better than anyone. Their motivation will be their desire (no pun intended) to give something back to the people who have stuck with them forever, it’ll be trying to let them experience something unique, something completely different…….to anything. Add to that the corporate, footballer world flocking to the U2 show as the place to be seen and we have ‘the event’. It’s kinda funny too, what about those who haven’t seen a live show before? Where do they go from here, anything is going to seem sub standard after Claw Wars!

And where do U2 go from here, the return of The Claw? I don’t think so , it won’t be anywhere other than rest for a while and I think we can all allow them that indulgence! But what next, where can you go. Personally I think it’ll be stripped right down and four guys will take their songs to the masses. U2 have reached such a level now that being the ‘hottest ticket’ they could do anything. They’ve earned it. They haven’t earned it because of a gigantic claw and a production of epidemic proportion, they earned it from 30 plus years on the road. They’ve earned it from playing every tiny club that wanted to book them to every fan who wanted to see them. They’ve earned it from signing every autograph for every one of those fans who believed in them enough to give them a chance to do this. And through it all they stuck at it. They posed for every picture with every fan no matter how exhausted they were after giving their all in a performance, and for many years to under a hundred people and not a hundred thousand. They stepped out front to meet and greet the fans for as long as it was safe to do so. They paid their dues, they have earned it.

For me U2, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Bruce or Led Zeppelin don’t have to prove anything to me or anyone else. They earned it, damn right they earned it. It’s called a work ethic and it’s called graft. Blood, sweat and tears. It’s called taking chances and making mistakes and it’s called entertainment. It isn’t about any one tour, it’s about understanding why you came in to this business and giving people something they have earned. The opportunity to take their hard earned cash and spend it how they want to. And if that is on two hours of a thrill of a lifetime who are we to judge?  When entertainers get this big let’s not lose site of the fact that they are still meant to entertain. It’s what they do and it’s what they should always do.

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, Risk, Uncategorized , David Bowie, led zeppelin, touring, U2, u2 360 tour

Island daze

I miss Island Records but I don’t miss record companies, Island was in a class of it’s own, its a tough one to describe…..you really did have to be there. Now I’m standing from the rooftops and shouting, ‘I was there, tough luck if you weren’t!’

My friend Neil met up with Chris Blackwell, Island Record’s founder last week and it got us talking about those times yet again. There aren’t too many moments in anyone’s career that trigger off the most vivid of memories….. but the merest mention of Island life and we’re away! I was equally as pleased to hear that the two of them had done just the same!…….check out Neil’s blog for more about CB and Island at Neilstorey.blogspot.com

You meet a lot of people in the music industry and you meet a multitude of stars. For me I not only met them but I worked with U2, Bowie, The Police, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Bob Marley…..the list goes on, but when I talk about Island my only regret is that I never met Chris Blackwell. It was probably circumstance more than anything, he commuted between Jamaica, London and New York and I didn’t cover any radio stations there…… I don’t think he was avoiding me! That being said he played a huge role in my career, firstly as a fan of Island music and then professionally.

I can talk about growing up at Island and learning my trade as a promotions guy because I was left alone to do it, left to make my own mistakes. It was much the same script I gave anyone who came to work for me once I set up my own promotion company……go do it, if you fuck up there isn’t anything I can’t pull you out of. Make your own mistakes, I made plenty but they’re exclusive to me! If they made mistakes but identified them and recovered from them they proved themselves to be the right choice. Looking at the people who came and went I think my choices were good…..they went on to become radio presenters, form their own promotion companies, management companies…. and my intern went on to manage Coldplay! I think I emulated Chris Blackwell’s A and R policy, go with your gut instinct and believe in the people you work with. He was the Lion King, he lived in me!

In the early days Chris Blackwell was the A and R department. He found someone, he talked to them, told them how great he thought they were and how he thought he could help their career and boom…they’re signed. Prime example Bob Marley, it worked for both parties. Marley would never have been recognized and gain the popularity he did without Blackwell’s guidance and likewise CB would not have been able to attract new acts to his label if he hadn’t done such a remarkable job with Marley.

He needed to stand proud and look at what had been achieved and build his label from there.That’s the secret of a good record man. I won’t harp on about artist development, scroll down there is plenty of that but what I will say is how vital it is that you have a creative mind and an understanding for what you sign. It isn’t just the music it’s ‘can I work with these people, do we both have the same vision?’ Though Chris didn’t physically sign U2 and it’s been well documented by the man himself, it took just one meeting with them and manager Paul McGuinness to convince him of what his colleagues at Island were saying…..this lot are special. Rob Partridge and Neil Storey had worked long and hard in the early days until Nick ‘the captain’ Stewart stuck the piece of paper under them that said..come join this fabulous place that employs me.

Still to this day I think it was the perfect marriage. No label would have persisted in supporting U2 the way Chris Blackwell and Island did back then and certainly no label would have dared not to interfere. They owed the label so much in the first few years that most people would have stepped in and said ‘Oi, stop pissing my money away, this is how it’s going to be.’ Island knew how to grow with their artists…… through relationships based on mutual respect.

Filed under: Business Lessons, Journey Through The Past, Managing Creativity, Risk, record companies , Add new tag, Bob Marley, Chris Blackwell, Island Records, Neil Storey, Nick Stewart, Rob Partridge, U2

Play the music, Mr DJ

Although the record companies had music people working there they were not alone, people who were in to music were employed at all levels. If they liked music they wanted to find somewhere where they could indulge their passion and get paid at the same time. Their spare time was going to concerts, it was never seen as something they had to do just something they were grateful they could do……to them getting in free was incredible, they would only have spent their wages on doing that if they were somewhere else anyway.The people I knew in local radio were a classic example, there would rarely be a gig I attended that one, or more likely several of my media buddies wouldn’t attend.

Everyone I knew then who worked in radio were fans of both music and radio. They loved the idea of having a good local radio station and wherever possible they reflected that in the music they played. They took far more chances in their programing policy then than ever they could now. They were never going to be too daring but they would certainly play records by new artists if they fitted in to the station’s sound…obviously if they liked Slipnot or some German industrial band they weren’t going to let personal tastes influence them, and lose their jobs at the same time.

Radio station music policy now gives very little room for new artists to receive anything like the amount of exposure they need to get a hit through radio, those days are gone. I remember just before I hung up my plugging boots it would be any excuse not to play a record rather than looking for a reason to…very sad. I heard the same excuses my colleagues in press were getting. Press would say, ‘we need radio’ before we can write about it…………and radio would say ‘we need press before we can play it!!!’ Where the hell is the logic in that, surely someone can be a little adventurous, I wasn’t asking the radio stations to play anything that I didn’t see fitted in with the station sound. How can anyone new stand a chance of having a hit with an attitude like that. When you think of some of the records I promoted were ’safe’ in the eyes of programmers, one example being Natalie Imbruglia and ‘Torn’ It became the biggest airplay single of the time…..and yet it was the first single by a new artist meaning today…..hardly any chance of getting that amount of support.

No risk from radio means no opportunity for new artists. Some people make great radio records, it shouldn’t matter that they are unknown.

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, Opportunity, Risk , airplay, independent local radio, radio station

Mistakes and how the times they were a changin’

What I remember from when I first started in the music business back in the 70’s was that record companies had ‘record people’ who worked there. I was fortunate enough to work for two labels who were run by three such people, Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert..the two guys who’s initials together made up A and M and Chris Blackwell the man who started the legendary Island Records, always my favorite label.

Island was my first outing in to the world of promotion and what a great place for an initiation. Everyone who worked there from the front desk at reception to the ladies in the canteen lived and breathed music….for them it was the best job they could have. Although I had first hand knowledge of both Island and A and M I made a great many friends at other labels and they too were there for the right reason.

When I got my first job the guy who employed me, Ray Cooper wanted to know if I was interested in music before he even interviwed me. We discussed what the job entailed, obviously but we compared notes and discovered we had similar tastes. I was used to talking music because I did it most of the time with my friends, it came naturally.Maybe that interest was what swung it for me, got me the job, after all I had no experience in selling but I had enthusiasm and passion driven by a love of music rather than a love for selling.

I think where the record companies benefited was through the experience of these people. They knew what to do with artists, they understood them and the collaboration of creative minds was a marriage made in heaven. They understood how to get the best out of their artists and were sympathetic to their needs, and artists invariably need! They didn’t force them to deliver records to satisfy their timelines and by a certain date to satisfy quarterley sales figures. They allowed them the time to make the right record…what creative process can produce thgeir best work that way? Nobody said to Picasso, paint..he just painted. You signed an artist because they had talent not because they could meet deadlines. The irony was that if they delivered a substandard record they sent them back to make a better one, so what was the point anyway ?

There wasn’t the huge turnover of staff either, they had the right people doing the right jobs, no more , no less. Somehow over the years record companies lost their way, they expanded, made mistakes but couldn’t accept that they had made those mistakes and started to unceremoniously dump everyone in order to have a more streamlined operation. In doing that they lost the very core of those people who made it work in the first place.

Filed under: Business Lessons, Journey Through The Past, Risk, mistakes , A and M, Add new tag, Chris Blackwell, downsizing in the music business, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, Island Records, mistakes, tony michaelides

Who did what to rock and roll?

Who did what to rock and roll indeed? Everyone is to blame, some more than others. Maybe the one area where they understood it a little better is touring, it seems to be thriving.  It shows that while the record business suffers the music business doesn’t.  Let’s begin by taking a look at record companies and see why the don’t quite have the attraction they once did.

There was the time everyone wanted a record deal, you signed and you were on your way.  Being signed to a record company meant something, it was a massive boost…..you felt invincible.  It gave you the determination to succeed…someone had spotted you, thought you had that certain something and wanted to make you successful.  It was like passing your driving test, someone had recognized you could do this and you were ready for the road.  It might be a long road, but they had the courage to stick with you, they were in it for the long haul.  They signed you because you had talent and they wanted to nurture that talent, they wanted to watch it grow. 

You were given the money you needed to make a record and maybe a little more to live on, to tour.  It was “the advance” and it did what it said it would do, it allowed you to advance, it wasn’t an instant fix….and with it came an experienced group of people to help make it happen.  Maybe you were young and lacked experience, maybe your manager needed a little guidance, some help.  All you had was talent, not a bad place to start.  The record company had that experience…where you hadn’t done it before they had and were prepared to help.  Wherever you were lacking they had people who could help. they had made mistakes, plenty of them and a lot more than anyone they’d ever signed.

The money the record company gave you was a loan and like any business they wanted a return on their investment. It’s called recouping and it means repaying…..but like any investment they didn’t expect it to happen overnight, it was a risk. They were prepared to wait ad not only did they get their money back, they got a lot more. It was a never ending circle, when you made money off one band you invested in another looking for the same return. it made good business sense and it allowed labels and acts to grow together.

Filed under: Business Lessons, Risk , artist development, record comapnies, recoupement, Risk, tony michaelides

Tony Wilson, once seen never forgotten.

Part of my brief at Island Records was to try and secure TV performances and video showings of the acts I represented. During my time as a salesman for Transatlantic and ABC Records, I had watched Tony Wilson’s career blossom from aspiring journalist and local news presenter to being pushed to the forefront in Granada TV’s quest to give Top of the Pops, the BBC’s flagship pop show a run for their money….well that was the original plan anyway! Granada’s boss David Plowright was fan of Tony’s and thought he was the man for the job. I agreed with him completely, he was the perfect person to front such a brave challenge, and Granada were the perfect TV company to take on the BBC..

 

Local television and more specifically local news programs weren’t known for championing any type of new or even established music in those days, they were just that, local news…….. but Granada has always been at the forefront when it came to being a little more adventurous. It was they who a decade earlier thought it might be a good idea to put this interesting bunch of Liverpool lads on the box, a parade of moptops called The Beatles……and a guy back then Johnny Hamp took the kind of chance no one would ever dare to today.

 

Tony Wilson to a great many of people in the north west of England was a love, hate type of guy. The first time I saw him on my local news show he made me smile, made me giggle, there was something about him that was entertaining. He was very personable too when he acknowledged me at the Marley show back in 1975. Even back then when celebrity was really only used to describe The Beatles, The Stones and Hollywood I could see how people would leer at him, shout insults and obscenities….he was our own ‘celebrity’ He had a look and a way about him that impressed some and pissed off others.  Certain characters would make a point of pulling away from their own crowd and go up to him purely to tell him they thought he was crap….why because he was on TV and they weren’t? In fact in knowing Tony for nearly 30 years I can honestly say I never heard anyone say he was OK! If you asked people what they thought of him it would be ‘He’s great, our Toe’ or ‘I hate the bastard’ I think he loved that, the fact that everyone had an opinion about him. He was never ‘Tony who?’ and never should he have been.

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, Journey Through The Past, Opportunity, Risk , About Tony Michaelides, BBC Top of the pops, Granada TV, Island Records, tony wilson

Sign here and leave the rest to us…..the art of having a hit.

 

Record companies had it easy, for a long time. They had a product and there was a market, quality artists making quality music to a receptive public. Music was a big part of people’s lives and they were happy to indulge. Just when there appeared to be a dip in the market, along came the CD.  Over the years record companies had failed to maintain standards…..too many average acts releasing average records that lead to a disillusioned public, one that wasn’t as stupid as the industry thought.

 

With the CD however, all of a sudden they got lucky…..all this quality back catalogue at their disposal and without the recording costs. They were able to repackage it and sell it back to the people who had bought it previously…. but in a new format. Profit margins were high and it gave them the money to invest in the new artists they were signing…..provided the public were interested in their new signings. The honeymoon over, sales started to decline.

 

The downsizing of the music business has had its benefits though. The mess the record companies got themselves in to partly, though not entirely of their own doing, has lead to a shift of power…back to the artist. Too may record companies were signing too many acts…….throw enough shit against the wall and some of it will stick. They can no longer afford to that….a blessing in disguise and an opportunity for the artists to realize that what they needed a record company for in the past no longer applies, the recording cost advance and distribution. I’ll come back to that on a future blog, and in more detail.

 

Artists are abundant with ideas and quite often they have more imagination than a great deal of the people at record companies. They think creative, not budget. It’s worked out well for the more astute, thinking musician. While the record company can’t afford to take the risk, artists don’t want them to and think they can do a better job anyway. It’s cheaper too and you don’t get landed with ‘the bill.’

 

Gone are the days where you needed a record company to deposit a bag of cash so you could make a record. The plan was simple, we the record company sign you and give you an advance and then………….you will spend your entire life giving it us back. You will pay for everything, every lavish video you make that will help us market and promote it….is a cost to you, every stylist we tell you to use because you’re still too ugly to film, is a cost to you. Every time we go to radio, and ONE music programmer tells us the song is too long, the chorus comes in too late, we will run back to head office and insist on a remix for radio, you will be charged for. How many times have I heard that desperate excuse bleated out at a record company meeting?

 

When you’ve paid, or should I say owe the record company for the remix and still it’s not on the radio then the marketing meeting, the one that happens every Monday morning will announce…………. we’ve done an extended version and it’s in the shops tomorrow so the fans (if you still have any left) will buy able to buy it (for ‘buy’ see ‘ripped off’)

 

The major record company Einstein theory behind this one is…..we STILL can’t get it played BUT if the fans, the poor bastards who liked you before we’d ever heard of you, go and buy it then it will chart ……. and meanwhile we’d done the math and it’s made it on the bill, your bill.

 

What has happened here is…. the contingency plan. We took it to radio because we thought we could make you successful, get you on the radio and make this a hit (remember that crappy little cassette you gave us which had those great songs on?….you know the one we spent 50K on, tarting it up…now you remember!)…….. Well, we couldn’t so now we are forcing it on the unsuspecting public and they’ll get it in to the charts for us  ………..and then, the radio stations who don’t play music unless it’s in the charts may re consider it for their playlists, because they’ll have to….because it’s a hit.

 

That in turn will then make it easier for the independent radio and press people we brought in, the ones we had to because your manager insisted he didn’t think ours could do the job. Did he/she neglect to tell you that you’ll be paying for that too, and of course the bonuses they’ll get when the record’s a hit?…the one the public bought without hearing it on the radio

 

Fantastic, maybe it would have been cheaper to dispense with everything in the first place and get the public to do the job they couldn’t. Passes the time though.

 

Filed under: Business Lessons, Risk , hit records, independent promotion, record companies, tony michaelides

Get up, stand up..Creative Failure

 You would never think two words like creativity and failure would go together at all, but they do. ‘Fail’ always sounds such an extreme word, so final……….when most of the time failure is just the beginning to success. It might not be success with the first thing you ever attempt but it’s the experience you gain from failure that will help you to succeed

 

I have valued most everything I ever went in to as an adventure, an exercise in knowledge and experience. Of course some bring you heartache at the time, but if I didn’t think I had learned from that experience I would never try anything again, would I?  I never questioned my decision in trying something. Once I made the decision to go for it then I just set out to make it a success. Some of the things that might happen along the way may be out of your control but still, that’s a lesson too. Sometimes it can be as simple as ‘wrong time’ That’s Ok. Next time just make sure it’s the right time. Failure comes from risk, just as opportunity and success do. It’s always the right decision…provided you move forward from the experience.

 

Most successful people have failed, and many of them several times. You don’t think successful people fail…..but they do…. the difference is they don’t see it as failure, more something of value. With some there is a stigma attached to failure, they see it as embarrassment. That should never be the case. Where is the shame in taking a risk, in showing that you are prepared to take that chance? I personally think it is the opposite and that people who take risks are admired, certainly in business. The greatest the risk can mean the greater the reward.

 

When I first met Simon Cowell in the early 90’s he was 30, he’d been bankrupt twice and was living with his parents. That stopped you in your tracks didn’t it! You would never equate Simon Cowell with failure but he has seen failure as much as anyone. What makes him special is his ability to get up, dust himself down and make sure whatever went wrong doesn’t happen again. He has had failures but still doesn’t accept the meaning of the word, they’re more setbacks, a bit of a nuisance! He shows great character and resilience and has that determination to make things work. Obviously it’s a lot easier now for him with money in the bank, but he still does it at the risk of failure. He still sees opportunities there and he wants to take them. He hardly needs the money, but he relishes the challenge.

 

Simon was always an entertaining character. When I used to promote his records when he was at BMG he would drive me mad at times. I’d have these conversations with him and try to explain why people didn’t play records by glove puppets like Zig and Zag or ‘The Power Rangers’ but he still would insist they were hits. ‘Yes’ I’d say ‘but it won’t be down to me getting them played!’ You just gave up in the end and agreed to disagree. Simon’s big break came from a couple of actors in the UK and a cover version of the Righteous Brothers’ ‘Unchained melody’ It became the biggest selling record of the year but to most people they were just a couple of good looking guys with a popular TV show, certainly not singers. Simon Cowell spent months and months persuading them to make a record, offering them ludicrous sums of money until eventually they relented, like we all did but without the cash!

Filed under: Business Lessons, Managing Creativity, Opportunity, Risk , Add new tag, BMG, creative failure, creativity, failure, Risk, smon cowell, tony michaelides

What’s the frequency,T?

 REM had released their critically acclaimed album , Murmur and I was fortunate enough to have Mike Mills and Peter Buck in the studio, great guys but a long way off being famous……..All the time in the world and no promo person dragging them off for the next jaunt of their radio tour. ‘Here to chill’ was their motto, and that suited me, be my guest…… And they were just that, very chilled but also very chatty…..in fact that reminds me someone bootlegged it and I think and it’s out there somewhere called’ Shiny chatty people’ if I’m not mistaken.

 

They virtually took over the whole show. In fact they were much better disc jockeys than me, probably still are. They were playing Manchester the following night and they came up the night before specially to sit in on the whole of my Sunday night show. When moments like that happen in radio you treasure them, they’re wonderful.  Just two decent blokes here for a good time…….well me as well, I was a decent bloke too!

 

I was impressed at how at ease they were with promoting themselves. Looking at them with my promotion head on they were exactly the type of artist you dream of working with. A plugger can get them in to a radio station but then it’s down to the artist. You give them that opportunity and they either go about building a nice fan base of media people…..  radio, TV, press… wherever, or they screw it up by being an asshole.

 

Peter Buck grabbed the mike just as I was about to link in to the midnight news…’This is Peter Buck , you’re listening to me Peter Buck and Mike Mills and this is Tony the Greek’s Last Radio Program here on fabulous Piccadilly Radio and…… it’s the wiiiiiiiitching hour’ The look on the newsreader’s face was priceless. I think she was used to precisely timed slick links in to the news and here we were just fooling around and having some fun……..well it was probably a lot better than she’d have got from me, he sounded pretty good actually.  

 

I remember how much I loved their early albums where Michael Stipe’s voice so far back in the mix it gave it quite an ethereal sound. It sounded almost like an ‘embarrassed’ vocal from a lead singer…… I’m the singer but I’m shy. I’ll sing but I don’t want you to hear me. I wondered what type of a lead singer he wanted to be….after all he didn’t lead in a way lead singers usually do… aren’t they supposed to do just that, lead?  But apart from that, what was producer Mitch Easter thinking……why didn’t he bring the vocal up, why couldn’t we hear what was he singing about? Naturally that voice evolved and became very identifiable over the years, and it was a pretty damn fine voice too but back then it gave the band a very different sound. Radio free Europe wasn’t too bad though come to think of it, you could hear Stipe and what he was singing about. One of my favorites though and a song I played a lot was Pretty persuasion. A classic.

 

Some of the best moments I had doing my show was when we had people come in. Again it was the not knowing what could happen that excited us all. A little bit of risk and we could all roll with it. If I was an artist I think I would have preferred that type of show also. I used to feel quite sorry for them at times when they were out on gruelling promotional tours when they’d clearly rather be a home.You drive 200 miles to do an interview with someone, you back hurts, you’re hungry tired and irritable and the first question  you get is ‘Tell us about the album then, are you pleased with it’

 

Actually I have just remembered a gem from way back when. ….I took Pat and Greg Kane who were twin brothers and had their band Hue and Cry in to do an interview with a ‘Hey, I’m a DJ, come love me’ type at a radio station in Newcastle, all beaming smiles, couldn’t even be bothered to read the biog…..’Hey hi guys , fabulous to have you in here today , I’m a great fan..when did you guys first meet ’ …….. Questions like that don’t always bring out the best in the artist……

 

That’ll have to do for now though…..but I’ll gather my thoughts a bit and follow up with a few more radio moments in future blogs. Anyone out there can help? I’d be more than grateful. I actually started a Facebook group for that sole purpose………I hate it so much when you have to rack your brain and think what the hell went on.. I still feel the same age now though as when I did the show……even though my memory doesn’t necessarily agree.

Filed under: Business Lessons, Journey Through The Past, Opportunity, Risk , Add new tag, Hue and Cry, Last Radio Programme, Mike Mills, Pat and Greg Kane, Peter Buck, Piccadilly Radio, REM, tony michaelides, Tony the Greek

Radio Ga Ga ……Red light spells danger

Cast your mind, or in fact my mind, back years ago. I can see myself sat there in my radio big man chair with these huge speakers hanging from the ceiling. Proper equipment and proper people milling around, newsreaders, glass panels and lots of big doors leading to different places with different equipment….and not a clue what any of it did. And then the big red light would come on and light up the room. I’d have my headphones on and it was…….SHOW TIME! …… All I knew was the red light said we were on air. It was always a relief to see that….and when you didn’t it meant dead air. Not good, not good at all. When that happened you would always see the other red light…the one on the telephone switchboard…..the ex directory line. Uh oh…..in radio jargon it signified a fuck up. The fuhrer was on the phone breathing fire….well he was always quite gentle really ’What happened then’ he’d say. I would always say the same ‘Nothing’ It seemed like the right answer and in fact totally right…nothing did happen, no music, no voice, no nothing! …….and not much of a follow up conversation either. Well I mean I didn’t want to be distracted now did I?

 

 The lights were dim, always doubly dim………so dim in fact I could rarely read what it said on the record sleeve and too dark to find the angle poise. I’d turn the music up and settle down to the best night in you could ever have. I only needed a bath, but that may have gotten a little tricky. I’d always pick out a ‘stonker’ for my first record. Out with the news jingle, a station ident as they call them and then crash, wallop one of Stu Allen’s highly polished and produced ‘Tony the Greek’ jingles. It made me sound like Wolfman Jack or some other mighty radio toff. I HAD to come out of that with maybe three killer cuts( radio jargon that signifies boss tunes) with the hope that after that it didn’t matter what shite I might spout off about. Having someone else voice over the show’s opening jingle always meant I got my name right too. Good start.

 

 

It was all chancing it.I just loved the risk, the thrill of the ride and how it could all fall apart at the seams.The red light meant live, totally live….it meant it was happening there and then. No props , no safety net. I mean what could go wrong.I wasn’t thinking that if the show wasn’t slick and polished that my mates wouldn’t come round and see me at the weekend. Business as usual. You go in , you do the show.Sometimes it was great , other times it wasn’t. Half of the fun was the never knowing , the sheer unexpentancy of it all. Why would I want to sit there for three hours if I knew everything that would happen , to the minute.Boring.

 

 

I played a lot of bands and artists that became successful……but by the same token the law of averages says I played loads of bands you’ve never heard of!  I would always try and support local stuff as much as I could but I could never, in my heart play something that was truly dreadful….and we never had payola then so I was never tempted!………..I mean who wants to be sent on holiday with a drop dead gorgeous model on an all expenses paid trip just for giving a crappy record one play, when I could get in to the International to see some lousy band I didn’t want to see for free just because the manager would call me every day and hassle the hell out of me. Half the time it was just easier to go……..and the other half said the model was nowhere to be seen.

 

Promoting records to specialist programs on the one hand and promoting them by playing them on the other was quite strange. Especially when I would phone some London based record companies up when I first started my show. You’d have some smart arsed plugger at the other end giving you the Spanish inquisition! I would tell them I was on the radio in Manchester and if they wanted to add me to their mailing lists.…… ‘Who are you?’. What radio station are you on? Where’s that…..  I never had any patience with them, after all it’s their job to find out where these shows are and actively promote to them…..and especially in local radio where there are so few programs that had free choice. I’d end up saying ‘Forget it’ I wasn’t going to be begging for free records, I was helping them do their jobs, damn it!’

 

Then these same dickheads would phone up and ask if I’d interview their artists as they were playing in Manchester……..’What group, what label are you from?’ I would delight in saying before leaving them to tidy up their own mess. I bet these people love it now that that can e-mail and text people and don’t have to expose their lame personalities to presenters. I must be honest I was critical of bad pluggers,  I always regarded it as a vitally important job. Can you imagine being a manager and knowing that this was the way they were representing your acts. The art of plugging is not far away in a plug blog to come !

 

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, Journey Through The Past, Radio Ga Ga, Risk , Add new tag, Last Radio Programme, Piccadilly Radio, Stu Allen, tony michaelides, Tony the Greek